Ray Hren and Jim Wendt were hired on a cold, snowy January day in 1968 when Fermilab (then the nascent National Accelerator Laboratory) was a muddy field.

Since then, they have watched that muddy field become the world's highest-energy
physics laboratory, and have seen their friendship strengthen while
working side by side in the Linac group every day for 35 years.

Hren and Wendt both received associate degrees in electrical engineering
from Chicago's DeVry Institute. Both were in their early 20s when they
joined Fermilab, among the first batch of technicians hired. They claimed
ID numbers 80 and 81.

They met in an orientation class on their first day on the job, instantly hitting
it off. They share an office, love their work, and are always willing to offer
help. "Our values and our outlook on life are the same," says Hren.

Yet they count on the differences in their personalities and the contrasts in
their skills and strengths. "We never compete with each other," says Wendt.
"We have always recognized and used each other's abilities."

Wendttall, lanky, quiet, a keen gardeneris a stickler for detail.

"Wendt does everything so well, so perfectly. Even his garden is immaculate.
Every weed is pulled out," says their supervisor, Elliott McCrory.

Hrenshorter than Wendt, more gregarious, a devoted fishermanhas
a fantastic memory.

"He is on first-name basis with everyone in the laboratory," says McCrory. "When there is a problem, he knows exactly who can solve the problem and how."

Hren's memory is legendary among laboratory technicians. If a technician
wants to know how a problem was solved 20 years ago, he goes to Hren,
who pulls out the exact page in the precise file in the right cabinet.

Hren's resourceful memory and Wendt's attention to detail have combined
on an array of challenges in their 35-year partnership.

Soon after joining Fermilab, they were shipped off
to Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island,
New York to build coils for the linear accelerator's
drift tubes. At Brookhaven, they spent their shifts
building coils, and their spare time zipping around
the countryside on Wendt's motorcycle. Six
months later, the coils were done and the two
had motorcycled to their hearts' content. They
returned to Fermilab and assembled the linear
accelerator in the old LINAC building, now the
village machine shop. The accelerator was then
a one-tank machine in a deep hole in the ground.

Later, the accelerator was moved to the current
Linac building. While Wendt built the coils for the
300 drift tubes in the nine accelerator tanks, Hren
worked on the pre-accelerator, the Cockcroft-
Walton.

"They were both there with wrenches and calipers,
helping build the accelerator," says McCrory.
The linac was completed on November 30, 1970
and went into successful operation; when the lab
decided eight years later to switch the initial stage
of proton production from positive to negative ions,
Hren and Wendt worked on the conversion.

McCrory joined the LINAC group in 1986. In 1990
he began building trim magnets to steer the beam
and beam diagnostics to sense its behavior. He
drew on Hren's and Wendt's vast experience with
the accelerator. Together, they assembled the wire
scanners and trim magnets and built the beam
diagnostics.

Hren and Wendt are now senior operations
specialists. "They both have very good commonsense
ability," says applied physicist Chuck
Schmidt, who has worked with them for 25 years.
"They have a broad range of knowledge and
experience. They are now working with a physicist
on ideas to increase the beam's intensity. Their
work is that of a specialist."

Hren's and Wendt's main jobthe names are
always linkedis maintaining the proton source
accelerators, which they accomplish with their
complementary styles. Every two months, Wendt
meticulously cleans and reassembles the ion
source, which transforms the hydrogen gas into
a beam. Hren took on more paperwork over the
yearssafety reports, the accelerator's operation
reports, and ordering spares.

They claim they have never had an argument while
sharing a small office in the LINAC building, and
no one disputes them. "It is almost like they know
what the other one is thinking," says McCrory.
"They are as easygoing as they come."

Because they were cramped in their little office,
sharing it with two other part-time employees and
an assistant, McCrory decided to give Hren and
Wendt two separate offices, side by side.

But Hren and Wendt were not happy. With a wall
between them, talking would be hard. So they
found a solution. There is now a big window, about
three feet by three feet, cut into the wall separating
their new offices.